The other day we brought word of a new folio-style case for the iPad 2 that is made of kangaroo leather. It looked great and carried a premium price north of $100. Then again, the case is made from kangaroo leather and that stuff ain’t cheap. (Or so we hear.) Well, the Aranez iPad 2 Notebook Kangaroo Leather Case arrived right after the news post went live and we’ve run it through its paces. Is it worth the price? Does the kangaroo leather really make a difference? You decide.   Fortunately, while the case comes in a nice… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

In case you’ve never paid attention, PDAir releases about a b’zillion cases a year.  I don’t know what their corporate vision statement is, but I’m guessing it’s something an awful lot like the one for Sherman Williams paint:  ”We cover the world.”  Because given the number of cases they release in an average year, I can’t think of any other goal for them. This week, it’s a bunch of cases for the HTC EVO 3D.  The full list of cases  include: Leather Case for HTC EVO 3D – Flip Type (Black) Leather Case for HTC EVO 3D – Book Type (Black) Leather Case for HTC EVO 3D – Horizontal Pouch Continue reading on Gear Diary …

In pop and rock music, the benefits of seeing a live show are largely about the experience – either the artist has a great stage show, loads of energy, or just presents a great opportunity to share a love of music with other like-minded individuals. Seldom is what happens live better than the studio representation – and sometimes when the theatrics of the stage show are highlighted the live elements are enhanced with pre-recorded elements. Of course, there are many, many exceptions to this … but for every Frank Zappa or Bruce Springsteen there are a dozen Tom Pettys or Britney Spears or Miranda Cosgroves. In the world of jazz, things are generally… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Big news if you’re a Sony fan! A Dutch site has leaked pictures and specifications of the new Sony Readers. (The same ones Sony has been denying were coming) They look…well, let’s check out the specs and then I’ll give my opinion. Translated from Google: Description The Sony PRS-T1 watching his brother looks on Mobile, the Xperia, with its curves and high quality chrome finish. Thin and light, so easy to take. The Sony PRS-T1 weighs only 168 grams. The screen is of the highest quality and provides optimal reading conditions. And while the battery will not suffer it. The Sony PRS-T1 read it one month at a charge. Modern functions you may well expect from Sony, and fortunately, the Sony Continue reading on Gear Diary …

There’s an old story about three blind men. One grabbed an elephant’s trunk and thought it was a snake. One grabbed a leg and thought it was a tree trunk. Another grabbed… Oh you get the idea. The bottom line is, when you look at only one piece of anything you are not going to see clearly… Or correctly. Yet time and again decisions get made upon this small-picture limited-think. Here’s yet another example. A post over on Cult of Mac today offers the following.   Here’s an idea: let’s cut Apple in half. Sure, the company is the most profitable on the planet and grabs more headlines than the U.S. President. The trouble, according Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Our friend Tom from Aligata leather goods has done a great job of expanding his line of leather cases for the iPhone, iPad and other assorted devices. We took a look at his first iPad case well over a year ago. We also reviewed his Leather Envelope for the iPad. After that it was his iPhone sleeve that we focused on. Then, back in March, we took a quick look at some of the items that would be expanding the Aligata line. This is the first of a few of the new Aligata items we’ll be looking at; the Premium Leather Sleeve for iPad 1 and 2. &nbsp… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The classic game Bejeweled from PopCap is one of the biggest PC office time-wasters of all time alongside Minesweeper, and one of my favorite mobile games since it appeared on Palm and PocketPC PDAs years ago. Now it is available for the iPhone for FREE until Sunday! The world’s #1 puzzle game is one of the top paid apps of all time. Match multiple gems for dazzling, high-carat fun. And face-off with your friends on Facebook in the electrifying Bejeweled® Blitz! Join the millions of daily players on Facebook and compete with your friends in the weekly Bejeweled ® Blitz tournament. -Match as fast as you can to blow away Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Even with so many devices going toward the microUSB “standard”, I can’t help but travel with a minimum of three different types of cables — and sometimes more than that. My phone uses microUSB, my iPad has its own Apple connector, and my camera is miniUSB. When packing, I also need to bring along the battery chargers for my camera and MacBook Air, along with a few other miscellaneous doo-dads. You may recall that I reviewed the Skooba Design Cable Stable DLX early last year; while I have found it to be an excellent solution when I need to bring along the whole ‘kit and kaboodle’, there are times when I have wished that it… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Like everyone on the east coast we’ve been doing our part to get ready for Irene’s arrival. We moved the deck furniture into the garage, made extra ice so things in the fridge won’t go bad if (when?) the power goes out, we’ve charged our devices and some external chargers and we’ve stored up some water. The latter wasn’t so easy because every store we went to was out so we just filled up pitchers. Batteries and candles were out too, but Elana did bring something useful home. Here’s a quick look but first, a brief musical interlude from one of the all-time greats, Tom Lehrer. Seriously, the guy was a… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Facebook is great in many ways. You can communicate with friends, share pictures, and vent your feelings. But be careful what you say if your rant is about your employer! As more cases appear where people are fired for complaining about work on social media, there’s more precedent for what is and is not ok! Forbes has two scenarios, along with explanations of what has and has not been protected in past legal battles. Scenario one: Pop quiz, hotshot. You’re a manager at a BMW dealership. One day, someone drives one of your luxury cars into a pond. One of your employees takes a photo of the busted BMW. At a later date, you throw a Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I reviewed Virtual City HD for the iPad late last year, saying: Virtual City is my favorite portable city-building game, and is available on the App Store for $9.99, making it an bit of a tough recommendation: the game is excellent, but the price is at the high end of App Store games. At the iPhone price of $5 it is an absolute must-have for anyone who has ever enjoyed a city building game, but for $10 I would suggest checking out the free edition before committing to the full game. If you enjoy it as much as I do, buy with confidence! It is a game that I… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We are in the full swing of summer, and in addition to great weekly sales, all of the sites are having massive ongoing sales. In capturing just the best of the ongoing sales, I have pretty much totally abandoned my rule of no more than 50 deals from all sites … there is just way too much great stuff out there at insane prices!! However, I am sticking with the >50% savings rule (and on bigger sales like GamersGate I stick to 75%!), and you will see that I have greatly pared down the list this week to try to focus on only the very best deals. I am continuing my ‘top 5… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Are you one of the millions of fans of The Sims franchise? Do you like Facebook games? If so … rejoice, because The Sims Social has arrived! The game will be immediately familiar to anyone who has ever played a Sims game: you set up your character, then start doing some basic tasks, and slowly built a life for your Sim including interactions with others. The image below shows the basic starting point for a character. As with the other games in the franchise you have extensive tools to alter your appearance to… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

  Over the past year I have helped fund a number of Kickstarter projects. I backed the Vere Sandal Company, with an iPad stand, and with a watchband for the iPod nano. If you are not familiar with Kickstarter, it is an online threshold pledge system for funding creative projects. Kickstarter has Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A few weeks ago we took a look at the Monster Cable iSport waterproof headphones. They are pricey but sound great and are, in fact, truly waterproof. They are machine washable!! If you don’t need the same level of audio quality but still want waterproof headphones JLab’s Wave headset is worth a look. While the Wave is not machine washable it IS waterproof and has the huge advantage of not requiring a separate mp3 player. You see, the Wave IS the mp3 player. It MAY look like a pair of in-ear headphones connected by a ridged neck wire but the Wave headphones house 2GB of storage and the mp3 player. That makes the Wave… Continue reading on Gear Diary …